Video: Archery store burns after lightning strikes

It wasn’t the second time lightning struck Jim’s Pro Shop in Shortsville, N.Y., but the effect was the same.

Bryan Roth

It wasn’t the second time lightning struck Jim’s Pro Shop, but the effect was the same.

At about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, the archery supply store and range burned down after lightning struck the building and caused a fire that destroyed it in about 10 minutes.

Neighbors said the store had previously burned down in the early 1990s.

Jonathan Angell, who lives across the road from the store at 4885 Route 96, said he saw lightning hit the roof, starting a fire that sent billows of smoke into the air that could be seen from more than three miles away.

Because of passing rainstorms, Manchester Fire Department Chief Jim Goodall said the fire was contained within the structure and didn’t come close to a propane tank that was about 15 feet to the side of the building.

Ambulance and fire trucks from departments in Farmington, Shortsville and Manchester responded to the scene, which was one of six in Ontario County to get called in over the span of six minutes, Goodall said. No one was injured. The owner of the shop was not there at the time of the fire.